Most Jewish laborers and employees lost their workplace immediately following the »Anschluss.« These dismissals were based on the absurd assumption that in this way jobs for 200,000 unemployed could be created at once. In fact, a hectic job hunting was set in motion leaving the door open to corruption.

The majority of the Jewish population was thrown out of their apartments – sometimes from one day to the next. At the time of the »Anschluss« some 63,000 apartments in Vienna were inhabited by Jews. By December 1938, only 26,000 of them were in the hands of their lawful tenants. National Socialist propaganda had promised the construction of 80,000 apartments in Vienna, but had only completed 2000 of them by February 1941. Aryanization of the apartments was considerably cheaper and replaced as it were an effective social- and housing policy. The expelled Jewish tenants either found shelter with relatives or were assigned by the municipal housing office to buildings and apartments primarily inhabited by Jews.